


Love is Strange

by SpaceWaffleHouseTM



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Ben is oblivious, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, No Pregnancy, Rey is thirsty, Single Father Ben, Single Father Kylo Ren, Single Parents, bed sharing, but also thirsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:21:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24866728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWaffleHouseTM/pseuds/SpaceWaffleHouseTM
Summary: “I need to borrow your kid.”“You what?”“And also you.”Or the one where Rey lies and tells her coworkers she has a loving husband and a son. Now the annual picnic is coming up and she needs a fake picture-perfect family. Fortunately, her friend Ben fits all the requirements.
Relationships: Kaydel Ko Connix/Rose Tico, Kylo Ren/Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 432
Kudos: 1096
Collections: Galactic Idiots Collection, Numerous OTPS Infinite Fandoms





	1. Help

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this](https://twitter.com/galacticidiots/status/1274595730636881921?s=21) twitter prompt by galactic idiots.

Ben   
  
hey…. can I ask you a potentially awkward question?   
  
Look I promise I’m not trying to come onto you but—   
  
Are you single?    
  
Like… your “baby momma” isn’t coming back? Confirmed?   
  
Uh... yeah?   
  
Rey... Tai is adopted.   
  
OH RIGHT. Look I swear I knew that. But that’s good because I need to borrow your kid.   
  
I’m sorry?   
  
and also you 👀   
  
Listen, I might’ve told someone at work that I have a husband and a son.   
  
You did what?   
  
So the annual company picnic is coming up and everyone was talking about bringing their significant others and their kids and I was feeling left out? I guess? And I… told people that I had a husband and a child.   
  
How old is Tai again?   
  
He turns one next week, why?   
  
Let's get married omg I told my coworkers my “son” was a year old.   
  
I—   
  
Look, the picnic is today in like an hour. Can I come over and can you please tell me everything I need to know about your kid so we can come up with a story?   
  
Uhhhh sure? He’s sleeping right now though so when you come in just be as quiet as possible.   
  
Can do. Again. You’re a lifesaver and I love you.   
  
yeah yeah love you too   
  


This is insane. She really should’ve just told her coworkers that she didn’t actually have a son or a husband and is, in fact, aggressively single and has hardly even considered parenthood much less with another person, but here she is, stepping out of her apartment dressed in a cute little pinstriped dress for the company picnic preparing to meet with Ben so she can pretend he and his son are a bigger part of her life.

Technically, the idea of her being Tai’s mother isn’t too far off. She’s babysat him god knows how many times, and she’s been friends with his father for the past several years since before Tai showed up in his life, but it is still a lie. She isn’t married to him and they didn’t decide to adopt this baby together.

_It’s insane_ , she thinks to herself again, but then she’s knocking on his door, then she steps back and runs her hands through the waves she’s curled into her hair, and crosses her arms over her chest as she waits for him to answer. Her fingers begin shifting, her body trembling a little as she waits, but then he’s there, the door opening to reveal all seventy-four inches of Ben Solo.

Right now he looks a little disheveled; his hair’s in disarray, his gray Coruscant University t-shirt is wrinkled, and he’s wearing flannel pajama pants. _Fuck_ , she just interrupted his afternoon, didn’t she? He did say he just got his baby to sleep, so it makes sense, but she still feels guilty.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” His voice is quiet as he steps back and pulls the door open to let her in. “You look nice.”

Heat floods her cheeks completely involuntarily as he shuts the door behind her and they walk into his living room. “Thank you.”

“I take it this isn’t acceptable picnic attire?” He does a little spin once they stop moving, nearly crashing into his coffee table as giggles spill forth from Rey’s lips.

Putting a hand over her mouth so as not to wake his son, Rey shakes her head. “Unfortunately no. We’re gonna need to see you in some daytime clothes, mister.”

Sighing, Ben leans back against the counter, the lights from his kitchen shining on his raven hair through the open window that allows her to see all the pictures of him and his baby on the refrigerator. A tiny smile tugs on the corners of her mouth as she steps closer to him, then he puts his hands on his hips. “Okay, help me out.”

“What?”

“If I’m going to look the part of Rey Kanata’s husband, I want my ‘wife’ to help pick what I wear.”

Rey thinks she might be about to have a stroke. Pick Ben’s clothes? Touch his clothes? She won’t lie, she’s thought about touching his clothes, but—well—that was under entirely different circumstances. Dreams are difficult to control, and she wishes her mind would stop feeding her mental images of herself undressing Ben, but she can’t. It just won’t let her go.

She’s had it bad for him for the past two years, and as a result, the thought of being in his general proximity while he changes clothes is probably going to kill her.

What a way to go.

Ben pushes away from the counter with a smirk on his face, almost as if he knows _exactly_ what she’s thinking, and fear spikes in her mind as she watches him walk into his bedroom, following as quietly as she can on the black wedges she’s wearing.

Together, they tiptoe into the room, which is right across the hall from his son’s bedroom, and Ben makes his way into his closet, pulling the doors open to reveal a sea of dark colors before he loooks back at her, and pulls out a black button down. “What do you think?”

“A bit formal,” she tells him, biting her lip as he puts it back, nodding to himself as he glances back at her, his eyes grazing over her body as he observes how she’s dressed. “Wear a t-shirt. You look cute in them.”

He scoffs. “ _Everyone_ looks cute in t-shirts, Rey.” Then he turns back to rifle through his closet, seeming completely normal for a couple of seconds before he rests his hand on a black v-neck, and turns to face her. “Wait, you think I’m cute?”

If she doesn’t start dripping sweat in the next couple of minutes, she’s going to be amazed. “Uh… yeah. You aren’t bad to look at.” At his continued silence, she laughs nervously. “You know, you’re easy on the eyes.”

Briefly, his tongue darts out to wet his lips, making their plush fullness ever more prominent as he thinks over what to say next. For a couple of seconds, she thinks he’s going to ask her about calling him cute, then he holds up the v-neck, and her entire soul sags with relief. “So will this work then?” he asks.

She lets go of the breath she’s holding. “That’ll be perfect.”

“Great,” he replies, letting the shirt rest on his shoulder as he grabs a pair of jeans out of a shelf. “So what’s our story? Am I a trophy husband or are we devoted to each other?”

“You started as a trophy husband, but we fell madly in love.”

He nods, then he gestures vaguely to where his son is sleeping in the other room. “And him?”

“We wanted a family and my mother has connections to a local adoption agency so we pulled some strings and he happened.” She smiles at him, sitting back on the bed as he reaches for the hem of his sleep shirt, and she realizes he’s about to change. _Oh dear god._ “I—I’ll look away.”

“Appreciated,” he replies, then she slams a palm over her eyes, and hears the sound of fabric rustling while he starts to change. “So what about the other stuff? How did we meet?”

Taking a moment to think, Rey hums as she leans back on the bed. “Let’s keep it close to the truth. We met when we finished grad school, both got drinks at the same time at the same bar, decided we were gonna be best friends except… maybe in this fictional version of events we made out and started dating.”

His breath catches, and she opens her eyes for half a second to the sight of Ben in nothing but his underwear. At the moment, he isn’t facing her, but she can still see his back muscles rippling as he throws the black shirt on, covering his skin but not quite concealing the cute little curve of his ass. She quickly shuts her eyes again, trying not to think about that ass as he shuffled around to get his jeans on. “So that makes me think of another question.”

“What?”

The sound of a zipper being done fills her ears. “Are we gonna have to kiss?”

She freezes. “Uh, hopefully the baby does the job for us.” Then she opens her eyes, relieved that all he’s doing is putting on a belt. “Also let’s assume we kept our last names when we got married. It’ll be easier to avoid slipping up that way.”

“Got it,” he says, grabbing a pair of shoes off of a shelf higher up in the closet. Just some old converse sneakers. Nothing fancy. “What about why we don’t have wedding rings?”

“Easy. We kept it low key. Social anxiety. Didn’t want a big ceremony.”

“That sounds like something I’d do,” he replies, then he points a finger her way. “Justice of the peace or a quiet hillside wedding?”

“Quiet hillside wedding. It’s lovely in the mountains.” It’s also hard not to picture it—herself in a little white dress and him in a suit, with no one around but a close friend for a witness and a pastor between them. The chances of such a thing happening are low, but the image is a wonderful thing nonetheless. “It was quiet and perfect, and just our style.”

There’s a tiny smile tugging at his mouth, but he just nods as he slips his feet into his shoes, then hops up a little to adjust them. “And do you need me to continue the act elsewhere?”

“If I do I’ll let you know,” she says, then she smiles sweetly, her mind finally calming a bit. “I guess now you have to wake up the beast?”

“Hey, my son isn’t a beast.” Ben grabs a pillow off the chair, throwing it at Rey as he pulls a jacket off the bottom. “He’s a sweet kid.”

“He eats like one.”

His eyes roll back in his head as he holds out his hand. “Come on, asshole.”

Taking his hand, Rey allows him to pull her to her feet, leading her out of the room as they make their way toward his sleeping beast. He can deny it all he wants. Tai is a little monster. She loves the kid, they both do, but he does what all babies do. He throws things, he cries, he makes messes, and of course, he eats like a wild animal. There’s always food everywhere when he’s done.

Ben’s hand wraps around the doorknob, and though they’re going to wake up his son in a minute, they remain quiet. Every step is careful, cautious, but then they get within about five feet of the crib, and her friend smiles down at the baby, whispering quietly as he blinks awake. “Morning, sweetheart,” he says, his voice soft as he shushes his son while he stirs awake, a tiny little whimper leaving him as he’s lifted out of the crib. “Shhh, it’s all right. We’re just gonna go under cover for a couple of hours okay?”

“Under cover? That’s a bit dramatic don’t you think?” She crosses her arms as she leans against the doorframe, watching him hold his son to his chest. “We’re just going to a fucking picnic, Ben.”

“Yeah, but—I don’t know—it’s just fun.” He looks back at the baby. “Right, Tai? We’re going to be secret agents. He’s the youngest spy in the world.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“There’s a baby present, Rey, watch your language,” he tells her, then she rolls her eyes again.

“Can we go?” she asks, then she pauses again, approaching Ben and his son, who is currently very entertained by his own thumb as he sucks on it. “Actually, can I hold him?”

“Hold him?”

“Yeah, I want to make sure he won’t freak out if I hold him at the picnic.”

A confused look blossoms on his face. “You’ve held him before, Rey.”

Holding out her arms, Rey nods in Tai’s direction. “Maybe I just enjoy his company. He’s a wonderful baby.”

Ben’s cheeks flush pink, making her wonder why he’s embarrassed as he steps forward and hands his son to her. Instantly her arms are flooded with warmth as she cradles him by her chest, looking into those gray-blue eyes of his as the baby grasps at her finger. She thinks he smiles, too. It almost looks as though he’s giving her a gentle little grin as he squeezes the finger with all of his strength—which isn’t much considering he’s an infant—and babbles incoherently.

Well, mostly incoherently. Ben had called her in the middle of the night a complete blubbering mess as he told her he’d been called “Dada,” for the first time. She’s been called for most of Tai’s major accomplishments so far, actually. The day he’d taken his first steps had been another very emotional one, but all she and Ben had done to celebrate was high five and drink beer.

An average Monday afternoon, truly.

“Do you want to drive or should I?”

“You do it. It’ll make us look more together.”

Ben snorts again as he comes closer, bending down to press a kiss to his infant’s forehead. It makes her heart melt. “Okay, I’ll go get his things. Do we need to bring any other food?”

“No, my boss ordered catering. All we need is a picnic blanket.” She points a finger at him. “That’s another reason I need you, actually. You’re the only functional adult I know who has one.”

Laughter fills the apartment as he leaves the room, Rey and his baby following suit. “I am far from functioning, Rey, I just take enough antidepressants to kill a horse.”

“Ben,” she protests, watching as he walks into the kitchen, and starts preparing his things.

“It was a joke, I promise.” He points to a closet across the hall. “Can you grab the picnic blanket? It’s under all the _Toy Story_ blankets.”

“Why _Toy Story?”_

“He likes Buzz Lightyear. Maybe a little too much. I think it’s his first childhood obsession.”

Something about the way his face lights up as she turns away tugs at her heart. It’s the good kind of tug, though, the kind that makes butterflies flutter in her stomach and her body feel warm. That second part, though, might have more to do with the baby resting on her chest.

Tai is already falling asleep again as she opens the closet door, his hands fisting the fabric of her dress. Another involuntary smile parts her lips, and she holds him as close as she can as she reaches for the colorful picnic blanket that’s been folded up beneath the Toy Story blankets. He’s a cute little guy, she can see why Ben’s so gone over him. It’s fun to hang out with him, to hear him laugh or see him smile, and she thinks given how well they get along that faking this will be easy.

She hopes it will be easy.

Pulling the blanket from the closet, Rey walks back over to where Ben’s putting baby formula and other weird containers of food in a little blue bag with Tai’s name embroidered on it. “Ben, are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asks as she comes up behind him, the baby in her arms babbling quietly as he fights off the urge to fall back asleep.

“Rey, we weren’t planning on doing much today. You haven’t exactly uprooted my life asking me to do this,” he replies, then he zips up the bag, slings it over his shoulder, and rests one of his enormous hands on his infant’s head. “Besides, it’s like I said. We’re going undercover. It’s kind of cool.”

Shaking her head, Rey lets him move past her, rustling his son’s auburn hair. “But it’s not a spy movie, it’s my job, my coworkers. They’re good people and everyone is really nice, but still.”

“Look, once people see us with a baby it’ll be pretty hard to dispute that you weren’t lying,” he reminds her, then he grabs his keys off of a hook by the door, and holds it open for her to walk past. “You just have to hold my hand all day and maybe kiss me on the cheek a time or two, and we’ll be good.”

She flushes at the idea of kissing him anywhere, much less on the cheek. Of course, thinking of kissing him in one place leads to thinking about kissing another—she can’t think about kissing him while she has his baby in her arms. That’s a one way ticket to hell. “We should talk about how we want to handle PDA. How far do we want to go with it?”

As she watches, he swallows his nerves. “Uh, just a lot of contact. Maybe cuddling?”

“Do we kiss? I know we talked about it, but what if the baby isn’t enough?”

“Do you _want_ to kiss?”

Silence falls over them as they approach the building’s elevator. Ben presses the down button, and she can hear the gears whirring while the lift begins to rise. “Uh, I’ve uh, I don’t know, do you think that would be smart?”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe we should cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Rey nods awkwardly, distracting herself by pulling Tai’s hand away from her hair as the elevator dings its arrival. “If it comes up, I always lean left when I go in.”

“Funny, so do I.”

The doors open, masking the sound of her breath hitching as they then step on, and Ben presses the button for the ground floor. His son babbles his father’s name in the silence that follows, causing them both to laugh as she tries not to think about how close they’d just come to a serious discussion on kissing. The conversation they’d had earlier had already been too much, but this?

This is going to be the death of her, but it’s just for one day, isn’t it? They might not even kiss, and all she’ll have to do is call him darling and sweetheart until the sun starts to set, then they can go back to being friends.

Then she can go back to quietly pining and pretending she isn’t in love with him. The world can continue turning, and she can just be his best friend and occasional babysitter again, just as it’s meant to be, just as it always has been… right?


	2. Picnic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi I updated the chapter count because I developed IDEAS for this. Whoops.

Rose 🌹  
  
Hey are you on your way yet? Poe won’t stop asking when we can all meet your baby.  
  
oh my god, Rose. Yes we are on our way, I promise.  
  
Just checking. I still can’t believe you hid this from us for an entire year.  
  
I didn’t HIDE anything I just didn’t tell you.  
  
Not everyone gets married and adopts a baby for spectacle, you know.  
  
In fact, if that’s why you’re doing it, you shouldn’t be.  
  
No, I totally get it, I’m just amazed by how much free time you have. Isn’t being a mom exhausting?  
  
I mean, yes, it is, but Ben works from home so we make it work. He’s a stay at home dad.  
  
oh, that is so sexy.  
  
Yeah, he’s pretty great.  
  
Is he also pretty? You told me he was good looking but I want to know.  
  
You’ll find out in five minutes we’re almost there.  
  
Can’t wait. I’m picturing someone kind of average looking but attractive. Maybe 5’10. Dorito waist? Blonde hair?  
  
Oh... oh Rose...  
  
WHAT 👀👀👀  
  
Just  
  
Just wait till we get there. Okay?  
  
See you sooooooon 😉  
  


As Rey sets her phone down, she laughs hard enough that her sides get sore. Before Ben can ask her what the hell is so funny, his son starts giggling from where he’s strapped into his little booster seat.

Now they’re all laughing hard enough that their sides are sore, which isn’t exactly convenient for Ben—who is driving—but it makes her feel like this is a bit more real than it actually is. Sure, they are only doing this for her coworkers to believe she has a more interesting personal life than she actually does, but it’s kind of nice to pretend for a moment that they’re a real family going to this picnic. Not this fake image she’s trying to create. 

She supposes it’s not too much of a stretch. Ben is the closest thing she has to family in this city and her best friend, and his son is kind of an extension of that, but they aren’t married or even romantically involved. It’s still a lie even if she does feel very, very close to them both. 

“What was so funny?” Ben asks after a moment, turning onto the next street in accordance with their GPS’s instructions. 

_Fuck,_ how does she explain this? “Uh, Rose was texting me asking about you. She’s trying to figure out whether or not you’re—um—good looking.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Well, we know you think I’m cute.”

If he weren’t driving, she would shove him. Instead, she gives him her middle finger. “Fuck off.”

“Language. There’s a baby in the backseat.”

“Please, curse words are good for a child’s development,” she teases, causing Ben’s eyes to roll back in his head as they come up on a stoplight. “Anyway, I said you looked cute in t-shirts, not in general, don’t let it get to your head.” 

_Actually, I think you look like a Greek god, but I’m not going to tell you that out of fear of embarrassment, so cute in t-shirts it is_.

Ben chuckles, shaking his head. “So I do look cute right now then? That’s what you’re saying?”

She’s going to murder him. He already wants Rey to be Tai’s guardian in the event that something happens to him, but she might just be willing to speed up that process if he doesn’t stop acting like a little shit. “You’re cute. Are you happy?”

The GPS interrupts him before he can say anything, and so he just grins, turning onto the street where her office is located. In five hundred feet, they will arrive at their destination, and she’s going to find out just how good of actors they both are. 

Well, she’d gotten an A plus in high school theatre, how hard could it be?

Ben pulls into the parking lot, still definitely trying a bit too hard to tame his grin as he finds them a space. Around the lot, she can see signs pointing to the rear of the building. Behind it, there’s an enormous field and nearly a dozen picnic tables she and her coworkers usually spend their lunch breaks at. 

Today, those picnic tables will be used to display food and utensils, and for no other purpose. They’re under strict instructions to sit on their own picnic blankets and actually eat their food as if this is an honest, true picnic. Scout’s honor. 

“I love it when I find a spot under a tree,” Ben says suddenly, sighing as he parks the car and leans back in his seat for a second. He then shuts off the ignition, and looks back at the baby staring at him with wide, gray eyes. “You ready to test your acting skills, Tai?”

The baby just smiles and squeals, causing his “parents” to giggle when their eyes meet again. Rey bites her lip as her eyes catch his, those hints of gold and amber shining like little crystals in his irises. “He seems ready.” She swallows then, watching his lips part. There’s a tiny little wet shine on his lower one, if she leans forward a scant few inches, she can kiss it off of him, and so she starts to shift, her body moving as if it is drawn to his. 

Shock fills her body as he too starts to move closer, as if he is being pulled by the same magnetic force, the same—

Someone bangs their hand on the hood of Ben’s car, and they both jolt away from each other. Immediately, Rey’s eyes are searching for whoever just rudely, cruelly interrupted them, and she soon finds Rose Tico staring at them with an excited look on her face. Her best work friend is jumping a little, her index finger pointing between them—but specifically at Ben—as she excitedly squeals, “Holy shit, that’s him?”

She sighs as she opens the door, longing to feel Ben’s body heat radiating near hers again as he follows suit, and proceeds to get Tai and the picnic supplies out of the car. “Yes, Rose, this is him.”

“You didn’t mention he looks like Adonis, holy fuck.” She’s blinking in disbelief as she continues looking Ben up and down. “Oh my god he’s good looking.”

“Please stop talking. If you don’t, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Rose opens her mouth to say something else, but then Ben comes around the car with his bag slung over his shoulder and Tai clinging to his shirt where he sits in his arms. “Hi, I’m Ben,” he says, holding out his hand. 

All her friend does is gape at him, her jaw falling open and closed for a couple of seconds before she clasps her fingers around his palm. “Big hands…” 

Fucking hell. She really isn’t going to hear the end of this. The woman beside her is right, though, Ben does have big hands. This is especially evident in the way he can fit what feels like half of a twelve month old in his fucking palm. 

“I-I mean sorry, hi, I’m Rose,” she corrects herself, then they drop their hands. “My wife got here early so if you don’t mind I’m gonna walk in with you guys.”

Rey shakes her head. “No, we don’t mind at all. How’s Daniel?”

“He’s good! We didn’t want to pull him out of school today, so he didn’t come, but it looks like we’ll be distracted by this little guy.” She points to Tai as the four of them begin to round the path toward the rear of the building. “Hopefully we won’t miss him too much.”

“How old is yours?” Ben asks, sounding more than a little confused. 

“He’s five,” Rose answers, then she swiftly changes the subject, pointing at Tai. “So I’m hoping you’ll let me have a turn holding this one?”

He just laughs, a hint of anxiety slipping through as he rubs his son’s back. “Yeah, maybe.” 

The urge to hold his hand has never been stronger. In fact, she has to actively fight it to keep from outwardly showing him how she feels, but then she realizes something—that’s precisely what she should be doing. They are here to prove to her coworkers that she has the husband and son she claims to, and so with a timid glance, Rey reaches for her friend’s free hand. 

At first, he flinches from the sudden, unexpected touch, but then she feels warmth surrounding her as he laces his fingers with hers. Relief in its sweetest form fills her mind, then they round the building, and emerge upon the picnic already in swing. 

Dozens of her coworkers are rushing about. Well, some of them are. Others are already sitting on picnic blankets with their partners or friends. Some have brought their kids and some, like Rose, have left them at school, but a few don’t have them at all. 

The food is spread out over about four or five tables, her boss and the organizers of the picnic continuing to lay it out even as people are already gathering what they want onto plastic or paper plates. Clear utensils are clinking against each one, and laughter and light conversation harmonize with the breeze to create the perfect backdrop for the picture before them. Pure, domestic bliss. 

“Ben, can you set up? I’m going to go get us food,” she tells him, pointing over to where Rose and Kaydel’s pink and yellow striped blanket sits next to another couple she recognizes. “Set up next to those guys back there. That’s Poe and Finn Dameron, they’re good people.”

Following her finger, Ben looks out to where her friends have set up camp, then he gives her a nod, and walks off, leaving Rose and Rey by themselves as they make their way toward the food. For a couple of seconds, she stares after him, watching as he smiles at the baby in his arms, saying something she can’t quite hear in that voice he uses when he’s trying to make him laugh. At the faint sound of Tai giggling, she looks away, feeling her heart melt as she thinks about the way he looks with his infant. He’s good at what he does, really good, and it's truly impressive how much he’s managed to do on his own. 

The sound of her coworker clearing her throat pulls her head from her ass. “What?”

“I just think it’s cute. You’ve been married for how many years and you still look at him like you’re falling in love.” Rose sighs dreamily, then she picks up a plate. “It’s just awesome. I never see you melt or anything and then the second you bring your family here, you’re a pile of mush. I can see why, though, he’s gorgeous.”

“Rose, you’re married and he is _mine_ ,” Rey reminds her, scooping chips onto her plate before she reaches for a hamburger bun. “Stop staring.”

She doesn’t think she sounds that possessive, but apparently she does. “I’m just looking. I love Kay. I would never touch, but I can admire the other fine members of our species, don’t you think?”

“I think when you put it in science-y terms like that it sounds fucking weird.”

Rose just laughs, nodding as she gives her friend that look that assures her she’s being a dumbass. “You’re fucking weird but I still love you.”

“I love you, too. Let’s go sit.”

“Okay.” Then the two of them make their way over to the trio of picnic blankets, taking stock of what their partners are doing as they approach. 

Ben is currently preoccupied with feeding Tai from a bottle, but he’s talking casually with Rose’s wife as she smiles down at the infant. Their friends, Finn and Poe, also appear to have introduced themselves, the four of them having what seems to be an easy going conversation. “Looks like our spouses get along.”

The woman beside her scoffs. “Finn and Poe are not my spouse.” 

“Don’t tell them that. They’re everyone’s work husbands,” Rey replies as they come up on their respective picnic blankets. 

“True.”

Both women giggle, then Rose starts grinning as she rushes up to Kaydel, wrapping her arms around her wife’s neck before she nearly pulls her to the ground with a fierce kiss. Finn and Poe both shake their heads, the latter of the two muttering, “Get a room!” as Rey turns to look at Ben. 

How does one greet the person they’ve been married to for years? How does she confront him, when just moments earlier they’d nearly kissed inside of his car, completely impromptu, and not at all part of the act? 

She has to do something. People—Rose—will notice if she sits down next to her husband and baby and doesn’t show him any sign of affection. As Rose and Kaydel part, both of them turn to look Rey and Ben’s way, but she can only see this out of the corner of her eye. Right now, she’s staring at him, and he’s looking back at her, but he’s got a baby held against his chest and she doesn’t think kissing him the way her friends had just kissed is a possibility for them.

No, not like that, but he’s smiling, and those cute little dimples of his are out and on full display. She could kiss his cheeks, could just lean in and… 

“Do it,” Ben whispers, then she blinks at him, leaning in close as she rests a hand over his, smiling in a way that she hopes looks flirty to everyone else. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, we have to make it look real, don’t we?” he quirks an eyebrow. “Just kiss me, really fast, on the cheek.”

_Really fast, on the cheek._ That’s doable. Still, she licks her lips, her mouth falling open as she looks involuntarily at his lips, then she tears her eyes away from them, and forces herself to look at those dimples, start to lean in, and let her eyes drift shut. 

It’s just a kiss on the cheek, and she knows it’s supposed to be easy, but somehow it feels like so much. She thinks she might faint, she’s definitely sweating, but then Ben’s body heat fills the space around her, and she can hear him shift the baby in his arms so he can pull her closer, and just before her lips can meet his skin, she feels him shift, and he knows she’s not going to touch his cheek but she shifts forward that final inch anyway, and suddenly she’s kissing him, actually properly kissing him, and not on the cheek either. 

The kiss is on the lips. Rey gasps as her lips meet hers, as she’s suddenly greeted by this plush softness that ignites a spark in her body, makes her veins feel as if they are buzzing with electricity. His free hand presses gently against her waist, his body shifting towards hers, but not pressing into it, there is a baby between them, after all. 

Time moves in slow motion. In reality he’s kissing her for maybe half a second, but it’s her first kiss with the man she’s been in love with for longer than she can remember. This is one of life’s big moments, one of those big events that’s going to stay with her forever, and so she commits every second of it to her memory. 

He’s so tender in the way he kisses. It’s almost as if he’s afraid of overstepping his boundaries, but this is just a simple kiss, and even as he pulls away, Rey feels a shiver run down her spine. 

Some kind of magic has just happened here, and she’s not sure when his hand started cupping her cheek, but now it’s brushing her hair back behind her ear. Those dimples are still out, too, his face lit up like the sun as he laughs softly. “Sorry,” he whispers, brushing aside another strand of hair. “I wanted it to feel natural.”

“I-it did,” she replies, still barely able to believe what’s just happened. “I-I—you caught me off guard.”

“Good, cause judging by the muttering I can hear and the occasional whoops, I think we convinced them.” He gives her another dizzying smile, then his son makes a little noise, whimpering softly as he holds his hands out toward his dad’s face. “Here, you should hold him. I want to eat some fucking food.”

“You’re going to teach this child bad words.”

“No, you did first, you told me to fuck off in the car, remember?”

She rolls her eyes as she takes Tai from his arms, the baby laughing delightedly as he begins to tug at the pin-striped fabric covering her body. “You’re lucky he’s so sweet,” she tells him. 

“So are you.”

“You’re quite the flirt, arent you?” she asks, her eyes once again drifting to his very red, very full, and slightly kiss swollen lips. 

Ben opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, another voice says his name, and they both realize at the exact same time that a shadow has been cast above them, and someone is now standing between them and the golden sunlight. Together, they look up, and she smiles as she recognizes her boss, Leia Organa, standing over them with a confused look on her face. “What are you doing here?”

Both he and Rey go pale as they look at each other. How the hell does her boss know her friend? 

“Hi, mom,” Ben mutters, then he clears his throat. “I’m here with my wife. You know, the woman I’ve been married to for the past three years?”

His mother gives them another curious look, then she nods as if she knows what he’s talking about, and as Rey’s mind begins to swirl with helpless confusion, she knows that the three of them are about to have a very serious and very awkward conversation. 

How could she have gone through years of friendship and not known the name of her best friend’s mother?


	3. Acting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter count might go up one more time but it just depends on what I can fit into the next two sections

Ben   
  
What the fuck do we do?   
  
Why are you texting me? I’m right next to you?   
  
Because my mom is leading us to her office right now and I don’t want her to hear this.   
  
God, Ben.   
  
Why didn't you tell me what company you worked for? I could have warned my mother.   
  
I thought you knew, I’m so sorry.   
  
Rey, babe, no.   
  
Again, I am SO sorry. I knew Leia had a son, too I just didn’t realize.   
  
Oh   
  
But you do have her eyes. The hair too kinda. Idk thinking about it now I can see it.   
  
Thanks?   
  
Anyway I think we should tell her the truth. It’ll make it easier to maintain our cover with everyone else.   
  
Are you sure?   
  
Yeah! I mean she obviously knows that you and I aren’t married and you adopted Tai on your own. She’s your mother.   
  
That’s a fair point. Okay. Let’s do it.   
  
❤️ You’re the best   
  
That’s why you love me.   
  
Don’t let it get to your head   
  


They put their phones away just as his mother leads them into her office, the older woman still looking quite pale as she walks behind her desk, gesturing to the two chairs in front of it. “Sit,” she orders, and neither of them dares to defy her.

Tai makes a tiny whimper as Ben shifts him into one arm while he pulls out both his and Rey’s chairs, and she can’t help rubbing his back for a second as she sits in her chair. It isn’t something she would normally do, but some instinct inside of her wants to comfort this child, even if it isn’t hers.

Luckily, it works, and the baby ceases crying before he can even start. Ben gives her an appreciative look as he sits, then the two of them turn towards his mother, who has her hands crossed over each other on the desk and a stern look in her eye. “What the hell is going on?” She points a finger between them. “I know you aren’t married.”

“I’m not,” Ben admits, then he scratches a spot on his head. “I’m just here to help Rey. She’s the friend I keep telling you about? The best friend?”

Recognition lights up her eyes, and she nods. “Right, so why is she here as your wife?”

Rey looks at Ben, tempted to reach for his hand as she tries to figure out how to put into words what they’re doing here. “We… I just—Mrs. Organa—“

“Call me Leia. If I’m going to have to pretend to be your mother in law, we might as well be on a first name basis.”

Blinking her surprise, she straightens in her seat, then gestures to the woman masquerading as her mother in law. “All right, Leia, I—look—a few weeks ago everyone was in the break room, and people were talking nonstop about their married lives and their children, and then Rose asked me if I was married, and I told her I had a husband and a baby. They asked how old, I said about a year, coincidentally Tai’s age.” She points to the smiling baby in question, watching for a couple of seconds as he reaches for the ends of his father’s hair.

Upon receiving a tug that is just a bit too harsh, Ben groans. “Ow!”

A giggle falls from her lips. “And everything was fine until the picnic came up. I realized I was going to need a husband and child to bring to it, and I thought, who better than someone I already trust? He’s perfect.” She looks at Tai again. “His son being adopted just made it even easier. That way no one questions the lack of a familial resemblance.

“I just felt left out, and I figured if we just pretend for one day that we’re a family, I wouldn’t feel so left out and everyone would think I was like them.” More laughter falls from her lips, her head shaking as she realizes how stupid this all is. “I know it’s stupid, but we’re here now and it would look even more foolish if I told everyone I was lying.”

Leia gives a slow nod, still processing what she’s just been told as she turns her eyes on Ben. “And you’re perfectly okay with this?”

“Yeah, Rey’s probably my closest friend, I’d do anything to help her out.”

It takes all of her strength not to flinch at the word _friend_. She wants him to be so much more than that, sometimes she wants it so badly it hurts, and so she forces herself to look down at Tai, who is staring at her as if he can see into her soul while he sucks on his little thumb. A part of her wishes their little family was real, that the marriage was genuine and she could call him her son. For now, she’ll have to settle with pretending, but she knows she’ll have to come to terms with reality eventually. “We just need you to go along with it,” she tells Leia eventually. “Just for today.”

Another nod. “I can do that.”

 _This is so weird,_ Rey thinks as she feels more relief flood her body. Her boss of all people is now in on the illusion she’s projecting to her coworkers that she has a husband and baby, and as mind boggling as that is, she doesn’t have much time to process it. They need to be returning to the picnic soon, before anyone starts to get suspicious about their absence. It’s already weird enough that they’ve been pulled away for this long. “Should we be getting back to the picnic now?”

“Yeah, I left a burger out there and I don’t want the bugs to get it,” Ben says, causing Rey to roll her eyes as she gets up, then offers him a hand, helping him to his feet as they make their way from the room.

Behind them, she can hear his mother let out an exasperated sigh, and a hint of guilt fills her body. She hadn’t ever expected that this kind of thing would happen. All she’d thought would go down was a few hours of light touches and holding his baby and then they’d move on. Now his mother is in on the ruse, which is going to make keeping this secret very, very difficult.

They’ll manage it somehow, but fuck if she isn’t going to have a hell of a time doing so.

*

Ten minutes later, they’re back at the picnic, and everything has resumed its normal pace. She and Ben are eating their food—mercifully guarded by Finn and Poe—and Tai is playing with a little stuffed bear Rey had gotten him when he’d turned six months old.

At first, she’d worried when they’d gotten back that they would be bombarded by questions about their absence. Luckily the baby that is now sitting in her lap provides a sufficient distraction. Her friends are honestly more enthralled by him than their own food, and she thinks she’s gotten lucky. This was a great idea. The illusion is being perfectly well kept, and Ben is a fantastic actor to boot.

He keeps putting his arm around her and holding her close, and best of all, telling stories of how they fell in love. She tries not to think about how similar they are to what she actually feels. She fails.

“I remember on our first date, Rey tried to get me to dance,” he says with a stupidly wide grin on his face, causing her to laugh as she leans into him, their friends leaning in toward them, hanging onto their every word. “I can’t dance so we just kind of swayed even though it was a fast song.”

“He still won’t let me teach him how, even after all this time we’ve been married.” She pinches one of Tai’s cheeks gently. “Hopefully he’ll let me teach this one.”

“I bet Tai will teach Ben how to dance by the time he’s ten,” Poe says, and Rey can’t help but smile at the mental image of a young boy, maybe in third grade, helping her teach Ben how to do something other than swaying. All three of them are struggling in her mind, but they’re having so much fun that they don’t even care.

Beside her, he shakes his head, snapping her out of her brief reverie. “No, I’ll never dance. I look like an overgrown tree.”

“Oh don’t knock it till you try it,” Finn protests, pointing to his husband. “Poe can teach you if you want. He used to be a professional.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, I used to do a lot of local musicals. Acting was fun but I had other shit I wanted to do so I’ve put that on pause for a while. I can still dance circles around any of you, though.”

Another round of laughter passes through the group, then Rey watches Tai crawl out of her lap, and for a moment both she and Ben tense up, but then he stops at the corner of the blanket, and begins toying with his little stuffed bear again. Once he stops moving, they both sigh their relief.

“God I remember that stage,” Rose tells them after a moment. “Fun times.”

“Oh you mean the stage where they start crawling and disappearing and scare the shit out of you?” Kaydel giggles helplessly as her wife pats her shoulder, nodding her agreement.

“Yeah, that stage.”

Beside her, Ben has gone pale. He doesn’t look surprised, but he does look a little uncomfortable. If memory serves, the idea of Tai crawling off while he’s not looking is one of his biggest fears, and so she makes a mental note to keep an eye on the infant, to watch him as closely as possible to make sure nothing like that happens.

“It’s okay,” she whispers to him, but he doesn’t seem to believe it. His lips are a thin line and his muscles are taut, she can feel it everywhere they’re touching. Right now, she’s leaning against his left side, able to feel every bit of him from her hips up to her shoulder, and Ben is pulled tight like a string. Without hesitating, she leans in, and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, relieved by the way his body relaxes. “We’ll look out for him. We just have to be on our guard.”

He falls quiet for a moment, then he blinks, his eyes falling down to her lips as he quietly whispers, “We?”

There’s something else to what he’s asking, or rather, she feels like there is. This isn’t part of the act, right? That might be wishful thinking, but her mind clings to it nonetheless. Either way, of course she’ll be there for him. She always has been and always will be. Tai isn’t her son, but if he’ll let her, she’ll be as much of a part of raising him as Ben wants her to. “Yeah, we,” she says, her answer drowned out by the conversation the others are having as she steals another glance at his lips.

No one is looking right now. If she stole a kiss, they’d have to talk about it later, and she’s not sure she’s ready for that conversation yet. Then Finn looks her way, and she realizes, suddenly, that she has an excuse.

Taking one last look at the baby to make sure he’s not too far away, she takes her chance. She rests a hand on his cheek, then she kisses him, pouring every bit of reassurance that she can into the kiss, hoping it’s enough, that it calms him.

Given that he melts into her, she thinks it does. His body presses against hers, causing her heart to beat a little faster when one of his hands rests on the middle of her thigh, fingers squeezing just tightly enough to let her know he’s there. It’s comforting and quiet, but it feels better than anything she’s ever felt before.

Except for their first kiss, maybe.

He pulls away, the sound of their friends’ gagging filling her ears as she keeps her eyes locked on his. “We,” she whispers, then as his face lights up in a grin, her body flooding with warmth—and probably flushing pink—as she turns away.

Rose is looking at her, a knowing stare plastered on her face as she then gestures vaguely between them. “So why did you guys hide it?”

Ben shrugs, crawling forth to scoop up his son into his arms before he can wander off the picnic table. “We just kind of forgot to tell people. We didn’t hide anything.”

Ruffling his hair, Rey nods her agreement. “Yeah, we just said nothing. It wasn’t out of shame or anything, we just did it without any desire for it to be something to anyone else.”

He takes her hand, lacing their fingers together as she feels a pink flush coat her cheeks. “And we’ve never regretted it.”

Her smile grows broader. “Not once.” Then he presses a kiss to her temple as Tai giggles gleefully. “And we definitely didn’t regret him.”

“He’s adorable,” Kaydel says, cupping her own cheeks with her palms. “I love his laugh.”

“Ours is cuter,” Rose replies, the two women high-fiving as Finn and Poe roll their eyes.

The latter of the two even scoffs. “I think ours wins.”

“Of course you do, we’re all biased,” Finn protests. “Our kids are going to be the cutest kids even if they’re not.”

Small noises of agreement fill the group, then the topic changes as Rose holds up her empty plate. “I’m out of food. Anyone want anything?”

The others all answer in a chorus of yes and no, but Rey has turned her attention back on Ben, wishing she could just forget the world around them and take him off somewhere to make this fiction their reality. “Do you think it’s working?” she asks.

“They’re hanging onto our every word.” He grimaces as Tai tugs on the ends of his hair again. “I think they believe us.”

“How much longer do you want to stay, then?”

“As long as you want,” he replies, then Tai reaches for the strap of her dress, and their conversation is forgotten as they both become enthralled by the infant’s movements, the act becoming easier and easier to keep up as time goes on, even with the audience surrounding them.

Even as it starts to not be an act at all.

*

It’s another couple of hours before they leave, but by the end of it, they’ve put up an act that she’s sure is plenty convincing. No one but Ben’s mother seems to know anything, and while Rose keeps giving her some slightly strange looks, she’s fairly certain the other woman knows something might be awry.

If she does, though, she says nothing about it. In fact, she even stays behind to help her pack up her and Ben’s things, the two making light conversation as they put the picnic blanket in the trunk of his car. “I know you said he was sex on a stick and sweeter than honey, but good god,” Rose breathes, reaching up to shut the trunk before she leans against it. “Ben is incredible. You got so lucky.”

Rey puts on a smile she hopes is convincing. “I know. I still can’t believe it sometimes.”

“He just… he seems like a fantasy, but somehow, you got lucky enough for him to be real.”

“Somehow,” she mutters, her eyes wandering to the entrance to their workplace, watching as Ben walks out with a grumpy looking and very sleepy Tai. “Look who’s back from diaper duty.”

Turning her head to look at Rey’s “husband,” she sighs. “Truly the perfect man.” Then she turns back to her friend. “Wait, actually, tell me something.”

“What?”

“Is he good in bed?”

If she had a drink, she would’ve spit it out. “ _Rose!_ ”

“What? He’s good at literally everything and he’s hot. There has to be some flaw. The universe needs balance, it can’t create a perfect human being.”

More nervous laughter escapes her, then she frowns, realizing she has no idea what he’s like. She’s had many thoughts about him taking her to bed, though about him many a time while she was writhing beneath the touch of her own hand, but those are all works of fiction conjured by her mind. None of it’s real, but this entire afternoon has just been one illusion after the next.

What’s one more lie to add to the rest of the pile?

“Yeah, he’s good in bed,” she tells Rose, picturing all those fantasies in her head, the feeling of his lips on her neck, her breasts, her stomach, thighs, and the place in between them. “Very tender, caring, and he cracks jokes every time he makes a funny noise. It should kill the mood, but it doesn’t, he’s just—wonderful.”

“I’m happy for you,” she says, then she clears her throat. “I’ll shut up now, he’s almost here.”

Rey glances up as Ben’s tree trunk form begins its final approach, then hums her approval. “See you Monday?”

“See you Monday,” she confirms, then Rey is left alone, but not for long.

A second later, Ben finally reaches her, and he presses a kiss—one that’s soft, kind, and makes her feel butterflies fluttering in her stomach—to her forehead in greeting, causing a jolt of surprise to rush through her mind. “Ben?”

“People are watching, I don’t think we should drop the act until we’re back on the road, do you?” He looks so innocent now, as if he’s genuinely just doing this because he’s trying to help, but the way she feels after having just been kissed on the forehead by him? The way he’d gone in so smoothly and left a lingering touch there? That doesn’t feel so innocent. It feels like it meant something, like maybe he wasn’t acting much this afternoon either.

“Right, yeah, just part of the act,” she agrees eventually, then she takes hold of his free hand. “We should be getting home. I think Tai could use a nap.”

“He’s definitely done enough spy work for the day.”

Rolling her eyes, Rey makes her way around to the passenger side of his car. “He’s not a spy, Ben.”

“He is to me,” he replies, causing his “wife,” to laugh as he opens the Back door, and sets to work on putting his son in his little booster seat, leaving Rey to come to terms with the fact that this is over now as she takes her place in the passenger side.

The act is up, their little fake marriage and the idea of Tai also being her baby has ended, and now life is returning to normal. A pit sinks in her stomach at the thought, the sadness forming along with the realization that she really, really wanted this to be real. She wants to be his wife, she wants to be that child’s mother, but reality is setting in, and unless Ben somehow magically shares her feelings, she knows that will never be.


	4. Overnight

Ben   
  
Rey? Are you up?   
  
Please be awake. I’ve tried calling you twice but you won’t answer and I don’t know why.   
  
Rey? I really need you.   
  
We both need you.   
  
I know I’m supposed to be able to handle this by myself, but Tai is restless and won’t stop crying and I want to see if you can calm him down before I call a doctor.   
  
I just need you. I need to hear your voice. We both do.   
  
SHIT! SORRY I WAS ASLEEP IM SO SORRY   
  
Are you okay??? Is he still crying?   
  
Yes. It’s a little quieter now, I don’t think there’s anything medically wrong with him, but I could still use you anyway. If you want.   
  
Yeah, yeah, of course.   
  
Just breathe, Ben. Okay?   
  
I'm trying I swear.   
  
You're going to be fine, I promise.   
  
I just want HIM to be fine.   
  
I was talking about both of you.   
  
Okay, I'm on my way. Hang in there, babe.   
  
Thank you so much. I owe you my life.   
  


Just minutes ago, she’d been fully asleep and half-naked in bed, shaken awake by the incessant vibrating of her phone caused by Ben’s panic. The second she realized the source of this panic, she’d burst into action immediately. Pants were on and sleep was off, and now she’s rushing through the hall of their building down the short walk to his door.

Already, she can hear little Tai sobbing from the other side of it, a pang of sympathy washing over her as she reaches for the doorknob, and lets herself in as she’s done a million times. “Ben?”

“Back here!” he shouts from the infant’s room.

Rushing through the apartment, she barely takes stock of anything, observing the floor only enough to dodge a little _Buzz Lightyear_ figure as she jumps over it, and continues making her way to her best friend and his baby. “What’s going on?”

Ben looks like a mess when she walks into the room, his hair is in disarray, his shirt is wrinkled, and his shoulder is wet where Tai is resting his head on it, his little face pink from crying. Her heart breaks for them as she approaches, and lays a hand on his arm. “He won’t stop crying, and I know they do this sometimes, but I was worried, and--and I didn’t know--”

She shushes him then, pulling both her friend and the infant into her arms. It doesn’t calm the crying just yet, but she thinks it calms him from the way his shoulders lose some of their tension. Though it brings her face a touch too close to his, Rey pulls back a little once she feels him calm down, and presses a little kiss to the baby’s head. “It’s all right, I promise. It’s going to be okay,” she says softly, her voice not quite a whisper, but not nearly at full volume. It’s gentle, exactly what he needs right now, and already, the sound of his child’s cries are growing quieter.

A relieved sound falls from Ben’s lips, and his chin rest atop the crown of her head as he sniffles quietly, and wraps the arm that isn’t holding Tai around her, pulling her in close as his breathing shudders with every intake of oxygen. _God,_ he’d been on the cusp of a panic attack hadn’t he? Sympathy overwhelms her as she holds them both a little more tightly, one of her hands coming up to rest on the infant’s as she begins to stroke his auburn hair.

Another small sniffle leaves Ben, and she doesn’t think he is actually crying, but _fuck_ if he isn’t close. “Thank you,” he whispers, his breath ghosting over her scalp. “Thank you so much.”

Tai continues wailing in their arms, but it’s quieter now, much more subdued, and she thinks what they’re doing is starting to work. Maybe he didn’t just need her, but he needed him as well. The two people who love him most in the whole world. She freezes at the thought that it’s probably true, that aside from Ben, she’s probably the next on the list of people who love his son the most, unless they’re incredibly close with his mother.

“You’re going to be okay, Ben.” She fights the urge to press a kiss to the only place she can reach--his neck--and simply settles for rubbing soothing circles into his back. “You’re both going to be okay. I swear it.”

“I know, I just--” He laughs to himself. “Sometimes it’s hard, doing this alone.”

_You don’t have to._ “I know, that’s why I’m here, to be there when you need a bit of support.”

“No, no, you’re my friend, you don’t have to--”

“Ben,” she interrupts. “I want to.” Then she pulls back, her eyes meeting his once more as Tai’s cries finally fall silent. “I told you this the night you brought him home; I will always be there for you. I’m never going to leave.”

His breathing catches as he looks at her, his eyes falling downcast as he swallows his nerves, looking as though he’s coming down from the brink of tears. For a minute, they just stand there like that, and she knows, though she hasn’t entirely processed, that he’s staring at her lips, but she says nothing as they stare at one another, almost as if they’re seeing each other for the first time.

After a couple of minutes--or is it seconds? She really can’t tell--she pulls back, looking down at Tai where he’s sleeping soundly in his father’s arms. Neither of them says a word, their interaction told solely through eye contact as they make their way toward his crib, Rey never fully letting go of him as they approach, then he’s slowly setting his baby down, his arms outstretching before the sound of the fabric rustling beneath his tiny form fills their ears.

Once he’s down, Ben tucks the blanket over him, and slowly, steadily, they begin to pull away, looking down at him all the while like the parents they’ve been pretending to be all afternoon. Both of them are breathing heavily as if they’ve just run a marathon, their hands braced against the rail of the crib as they look down at the sleeping infant.

His hand is just a few inches from hers, and she feels her heart racing as she notices it inching her way. Not wanting to be left alone, she starts shifting hers closer to his, their pinky fingers brushing against each other as her cheeks heat, undoubtedly flushed a full pink. This isn’t an act anymore. It is something else. They don’t need to be touching like this, there is absolutely no need for them to be doing anything right now since they aren’t acting anymore, but…

It’s nice. It’s so nice. Everything about the way she’s touching him is _right_ , just like it had earlier, and she’s starting to realize that maybe he wasn’t acting either.

Temptation rises within her to whisper his name, but she says nothing as she lets his hand envelop hers. His fingers are enormous, they cover hers so thoroughly that she almost wouldn’t know they’re there. It’s also warm, igniting a fire in her belly that she can’t ignore as she fights back the urge to lean her head on his shoulder. This isn’t the time for that conversation. It’s half-past two in the morning. She needs to go back to her own apartment and go to bed, but she can’t quite bring herself to.

“Ben--” she whispers, but she doesn’t get further than his name. In that instant, the baby begins whimpering again, the whimpers turning into little cries as he immediately lets go of her hand, both of his reaching for his son as he pulls him back into his arms again, and they’re both attempting to calm him down.

“I guess it’s one of those nights.” The corners of Ben’s mouth tilt upward, then he looks at her, and gestures to the room around them with one hand as he secures the baby to his chest with the other. “I’m just gonna let him sleep with me tonight.”

She nods. “Oh, okay.”

There's a hesitation as he spares a glance in her direction, his tongue darting out to lick his lips as he seems to think about something for a few seconds, then he sighs. “Rey?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you--would you stay with me? I don’t want him to freak out when you leave,” he tells her, then her heart beats in double time as she finds herself nodding again, perhaps a little too eager to spend the night with him in-- _oh god_ , they’re going to be in his fucking bed.

Struggling to find the words for a few seconds, Rey takes hold of his free arm. “I will.” It’s spoken like a vow, or rather, it sounds like one, given how serious it sounds, but if Ben notices, he doesn’t comment on it.

All he does is give her a weak, tired smile, and guide them out of his baby’s bedroom, flicking off the light switch as they go, and in the faint light of the hallway, she can’t read his face, but she knows he’s content. It’s all in the shoulders, the way they’re relaxed, the way he holds Tai with one hand and her in the other, and he leads them across the hall into the bedroom where he’d teased her about thinking he was cute earlier.

Tai is still making occasional noises, babbling slightly as she and his father walk in. She’s not sure what she wants to say, but as he guides her to the bed, she starts to realize that she’s never spent the night in his bed before. There have been nights where they’ve crashed on each other’s couches, but they’ve never, _ever_ spent the night in each other’s bed. This is a new first, one that really toes the line between whether they’re just friends or if whatever’s between them could be a little more.

It’s intimate in a way nothing else they’ve ever done before together has been. The baby on top of it all makes it even more so, in a way.

They both fall quieter somehow as they walk around to separate sides of the bed, and he sets the baby down on the center before they both crawl in on either side of him, lifting the sheets and settling in carefully while the mattress creaks somewhat beneath their weight. The blankets then fall limply over their bodies, the air rushing out from under them as she and Ben scoot in close to the tiny human between them.

Watching him lay a hand over his son’s arm does something to her, and she can’t help doing the same as their eyes find each other in the dark. Tai is already asleep, but she is wide awake, frightened by how real the illusion she and Ben had created that afternoon now seems.

Does he know what he does to her when he looks at her like that? Can he feel how hard she’s trying not to let her emotions burst forth from her chest?

“I think he’s finally asleep,” she ends up saying.

“He is.”

“We should probably do the same.”

His other hand settles in the space between them, and without much control over what happens next, she touches it with hers, their fingers lacing again at his child’s feet, the baby sleeping obliviously between them. It’s almost difficult to breathe, watching him now, but somehow, she does. Her chest rises and falls, and soon she realizes it does so in perfect time with his.

Focusing on that steady, even rhythm, Rey closes her eyes, and slowly begins to fall asleep. She’s not sure when she stops feeling his gaze on her, but she must eventually, because, at some point, she starts dreaming, her thoughts turning to him and Tai, and how she wants them to become her real husband and baby the next time there’s a company picnic so that she has a real family to take on vacations and watch movies with.

So that she can stop lying to herself about how she feels for him, and finally start living her life the way she was meant to.

*

Rey wakes with the early morning light in the most comfortable bed she’s ever slept in. Everything is warm like she’s left the heater on during an impossibly cold winter night, and if she leaves this space, if she gets up, she will be instantly greeted by the cold. There’s an arm slung limply around her waist, but it’s light, not heavy, as if it’s trying to--

She opens her eyes, Tai’s also sleeping face the first thing she sees before she gets a glimpse at Ben’s. Ah, so that’s why his arm is so loose around her waist, he’s trying to keep the weight of it off of his son. Even in his sleep.

It’s kind of adorable, really. He’s so good at what he does, and though he’d been scared last night, he’s great at being a father. She falls for him a little harder just watching the two of them sleep, and that’s probably a sign that she’ll never be able to just look at him and feel nothing ever again.

For a while, she just stares at him, watching them both, and she counts the moles on his face, watches the faint sunlight shine off of the bronze highlights in his raven hair. Somehow, those waves of his are still not completely disheveled, no more so than they were yesterday, at least. He’s still stupidly handsome in spite of the early hour, and she hates him for it.

Tai chooses this moment to stir into consciousness, a tiny babble leaving his mouth as she fights back the urge to giggle. She doesn’t want to wake his father, not yet, and he’s not her son, this isn’t hers to steal, but for that tiny fraction of time, she lets herself enjoy it, lets him find her eyes with his, and there’s a gummy smile being pointed her way seconds later as a reward.

“Good morning,” she whispers, tickling the infant’s chest with her pointer finger. “Sleepyhead.”

“Good morning to you,” Ben grumbles, then she fights back the urge to smack him as she realizes that he hasn’t been as out of it as she thought.

At least the only inappropriate commentary she’s made has been in her head.

Still, she manages to steal her finger away from his infant to flick his shoulder, causing him to smile just before he opens his eyes. “I’m going to destroy you, how long have you been awake?”

He shrugs. “Five minutes?”

Rey shakes her head as she watches his dark eyes open and land on hers. “Were you watching me, too?”

Quirking an eyebrow, he lets the arm that’s slung around her waist tighten as she stares into the golden embers in his irises. “You were watching me?”

She senses butterflies fluttering around in her stomach, nerves ramping up as she realizes what she’s just accidentally admitted. “I was watching you both. It’s cute, seeing you with him.”

Humming quietly, Ben turns his gaze toward the newly awakened baby. “Thank you for being here, I probably could’ve handled it eventually, but I appreciate it.”

“Hey, it’s no big deal,” she tells him. “I’d do it again. I know you need help sometimes.”

“Do you ever think that I’m bad at this? Raising a kid on my own?”

That right there is the most blasphemous thing she’s ever heard. “What? No, that’s--no. Ben, you’re doing a wonderful job. You know how difficult it is to do this, and you’re doing it brilliantly. Don’t doubt yourself.”

“I can’t help it. We all have those thoughts sometimes.”

Reaching out for him, she rests her arm over his, her fingers stroking gently over his bicep. “We’re only human. I have those thoughts, too, you know, that I’m not good enough? I mean, those thoughts are the reason you had to come with me to that picnic yesterday; because I was feeling left out and couldn’t handle it.”

“I had fun if it helps,” he admits. “Pretending to be your husband, pretending that I had--”

“I imagine it wasn’t quite as fun for your mother.”

Another smile parts his lips. “You should know she texted me after I got back.” His eyes flicker away from hers as Tai grabs at his sleeve with one of his little hands, tugging gently on it as he babbles casually. “She thought it was hilarious, what we did.”

“Oh? Did she say anything else?”

“Just that… if we ever wanted to come to another company picnic as husband and wife, we were more than welcome to.”

Surprise fills her as he says this, and it takes focus to breathe normally, to not sound as if she’s running a marathon as she processes his words. “You’d want to join me again?”

“As I said,” he replies. “I had fun.”

“Me too.”

A tiny giggle passes between them, then she finds herself looking at Tai for a brief half a second before Ben’s lips fill her vision once again. She can’t stop looking at his lips, she realizes. Ever since yesterday, she’s been dying to kiss him again, to have him take her breath away, but until either of them actually says anything about what’s happening between them, she can’t.

She opens her mouth, meaning to say his name, to ask what’s going on here between them, but then her phone begins to ring from its place in the pocket of her flannel pajama pants. Whoever it is, she’s going to kill them, but when she pulls it out and sees his mother’s name on the caller ID, she realizes that isn’t an option, even in the sarcastic sense of the word.

“Great,” she mutters, then she swipes to answer it. “Hello?”

“Hello, Rey, I’m sorry to bother you so early on your day off, but Finn called in sick and I need as many hands on deck today as I can get. Would it be possible for you to come in?”

_Kill me now_. “Yeah, yeah, I can be there in an hour.”

“Perfect, and tell my son to warn me the next time you two show up to a company picnic together, okay?”

Ben laughs a bit too loudly, and Rey’s entire body fills with heat. If his mother heard that, she’s doomed. “Of course, I’ll see you later.”

“See you later, and hi, Ben,” his mother replies, and she really, really wants to die, because not only did she just pretend that her boss’s son was her husband yesterday, but now she’s very clearly heard Ben in the room with her and given the early hour of the morning, she probably thinks they just had sex last night.

Yeah, they slept together, but it isn’t like _that_. Not yet, at least.

Rey hangs up the phone, ready to throttle her best friend, but given that she has promised to be at work within the hour, she doesn’t exactly have time. “I’ll punch you later,” she tells him, then she squeezes Tai’s arm. “And you are getting all of my love to spite your father.”

Scoffing in mock offense, he rolls onto his back, but his head is still turned towards her. “You wouldn’t hurt me, that would hurt him.”

“Yes, but I can be mad at you.” She rolls out of bed, adjusting her clothes as she looks down at the man she loves and the baby lying next to him. “I need to be going, but… last night, in spite of how stressful it was, actually wasn’t terrible.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

His smile grows wide. “Come back tonight. I’ll make you dinner, call it my payback for what you did for me.”

“Ben, you don’t have to--”

“Well, I’m not taking no for an answer and you need to go to work, so…”

She’s going to smack him, even if she loves him more than she knows how to put it into words. “Fine, I’ll come by,” she says, then she starts making her way from the room. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Later,” he repeats, then he turns back to his baby, the sight of him pulling Tai into his arms the last thing she sees before she leaves his apartment, and heads off to face the workday.


	5. One

Ben  
  
Do you need me to bring anything over?  
  
Just yourself, Rey  
  
You’re sure? I have a bottle of wine I haven’t opened in months. We could drink it.  
  
I have plenty of wine. I promise. I just need you  
  
That sounds ominous. Should I be bringing a blood sacrifice, too?  
  
No, I promise 😂.  
  
Or maybe a new buzz lightyear for Tai?  
  
I’ve passed Tai off to my mom for the night. We don’t have to worry about him.  
  
Oh WOW. You really went all out, huh?  
  
I have been cooking for four hours. I just need another fifteen minutes to cleanse myself of the smell of olive oil.  
  
Okay, i'll see you soon.  
  
See ya.  
  
Wait if you’ve been cooking for hours does that mean there’s a big, fancy dress code?  
  
No, I fully plan to wear sweatpants.  
  
AH I'll do the same  
  
Sounds sexy.  
  


That last text gives her heart problems. She’s currently standing in front of a bathroom mirror, just starting to run a mascara wand through her lashes, and she nearly stabs her eye out when she sees those words.

The whole conversation has her wrecked, actually. His baby is gone for the night with his mother—not for a few hours, not for a minute, the _entire_ night. He’s been working on food for hours because even if this is a casual thing, even if he’s just cooking for the sake of it, he cares about how tonight goes. 

Her heart races with the beginnings of several threads of hope that weave themselves through her brain. Ever since she left his apartment this morning she’s been waiting to return, been yearning to see him again. There’s been so much happening between them in the past day since she asked him to her company picnic. She knows it’s starting to mean something, that maybe he’s returned her feelings for a while or that kissing her yesterday had awakened something within him that made him realize—

 _God_ , she’s a fucking mess. She just needs to make it through touching up her makeup and put on her sweatpants, then… Ben’s place. Ben. Facing Ben and all the feelings she has for him. _Fuck_.

She can do this, she can do this. It can’t be that hard, can it? To talk to him about this? If he really is the closest person in the world to her, surely this will feel as easy as breathing. She’s just so damned nervous…

Taking a deep breath, Rey focuses on calming herself down for a couple of minutes. After all, she has fifteen of them to waste while Ben’s in the shower. 

The reminder that Ben is in the shower forces her to think of him naked. Her brain can’t stop picturing it, kind of like when she’s ovulating and gets uncontrollably horny? Except that’s not going to happen for a while yet, no this is just her fucking lizard brain taking over her rational thought and--

 _Calm thoughts, Rey,_ she thinks to herself. “Calm thoughts. Control yourself.”

Reaching into one of her vanity drawers, she pulls out a tinted chapstick. Her brain is probably jumping a million miles ahead of what will actually happen tonight, but still, in the event that they do end up kissing--or more--she doesn’t want to have fucking chapped lips. Anything can happen, she’s only human for wanting to be prepared. 

Once she has chapstick on, she makes her way into the bedroom, her thoughts so consumed by what might happen tonight that she nearly trips on the foot of her bed. To her credit, she only yelps once trying to avoid it, then shes rifling through her drawers for something, _anything_ to wear to the apartment next door. 

She settles on an old pair of navy pajama shorts, throwing them and an equally ancient white tank top on. If Ben has decreed that this will be a casual evening, she’s more than happy to oblige. After a long day in work clothes, she’s earned this.

And she and Ben haven’t had a night to hang out with just them--Tai is lovely, but they can’t always do what they used to with him around--in a while. This’ll be nice, it’ll be like old times. She has nothing to be nervous about, and yet, she can feel her heart pounding in her chest. 

Then her phone buzzes, and she can see her screen lighting up from where she left it on her bathroom counter. There’s no doubt it’s Ben, and while he’s not actually in the room she still focuses on composing herself, on keeping calm as she walks over to check what’s on her screen.

Ben  
  
Hey, it's safe now, I'm clothed.  
  
That doesn’t sound creepy at all.  
  
Has anyone ever told you that you text like an old man?  
  
I think it comes with the dad territory.  
  
Become a parent, Rey, I think I aged fifteen years overnight.  
  
Not true, you only have one grey hair.  
  
Why are we friends again?  
  
Because I give great hugs and you love me.  
  
I'm on my way over  
  
All right, see you.  
  
See you.  
  


The walk to his apartment has never felt so long. It’s as if every step she takes lasts an entire minute, and she’s moving in slow motion. His door is in her line of sight the entire time, but the seconds don’t start to pass until she sees it open, and a smug-looking Ben, clad in a plain white t-shirt and black sweatpants with the Adidas stripes on the side--well, a knockoff, she’d been with him when he bought those at Wal-mart--is staring at her with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What?”

“I make you dinner and you mock my pain?” 

She snorts at him as she walks into the apartment, ruffling his hair as he groans his complaint, but he’s laughing as he shuts the door, the smell of some kind of pasta sauce filling her nose a second later. “Mmm, but you love it when I mock your pain. It makes you laugh.”

Ben’s smiling when she looks at him next. “Maybe so, but I’m not about to argue. It’s my first night without Tai in many, many months, and I need you to… take my mind off of it.”

“You miss him?” she asks, sitting down at his kitchen counter. 

“Yeah, I know he’s with my mother, he’s in good hands, but still.” He laughs as he reaches for two plates by the sink, and places them in front of her and the seat next to her, then he makes his way toward his oft-neglected wine cabinet. “He’s become my world, you know? I work from home, I go out mostly for groceries or to spend time with you--”

“And to pretend to be married to me.”

“That, too. Point is, he can drive me crazy sometimes--like last night--but he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

This time, it’s Rey’s lips that are twitching into a smile, her hands cupping her own cheeks as she props her elbows upon the counter, and watches him grab a bottle of wine from his shelf. “That’s sweet.”

“Yeah, thanks for always being here, by the way. I used to doubt I could do this on my own.” He grabs hold of a wine bottle opener that he has lain out on the counter. 

She’s still smiling at him as he pops the cork out, and begins pouring it into two glasses. “I don’t think anyone ever really does it alone.” Those dark eyes meet hers, and as he sets them down on the counter, he comes around it to join her. “You know, there’s the whole ‘it takes a village,’ thing.”

A tiny sound of approval leaves him as he picks up a fork, twirling it in the noodles he’s cooked for them. “It does take a village.”

“So I guess I’m a part of it? Your village?”

He takes a bite of his food, then he sets the fork down, his large, warm fingers covering hers as they stare at one another. “You are.”

Another silence passes between them, adoration shining in his eyes--and no doubt, hers--as they turn back toward their food, and for a couple of moments, they just eat, sitting in one another’s company and making light conversation as the time passes. 

All the while, his hand never quite abandons hers, their bodies angle themselves toward one another, and as their wine glasses grow empty, Rey’s body grows warm. She suspects that warmth, however, has little to do with the alcohol, and much more to do with the man beside her. 

Eventually, her stomach is full, and though there are still a few bites of food left on her plate, she finds that she can’t bring herself to eat another. He laughs at her when she leans back in her seat, her arms crossed over her gut like she’s trying to keep her innards from exploding. 

“Drama queen,” he teases her, then he gets up, taking their plates over to the sink, and rinsing off the remains of what they’d eaten as she leans forward on the counter, and watches him. 

“But you love me anyway.”

“You sure do like to say that a lot,” he points out.

Her cheeks flush, her mental hackles raise, and she scoffs. “So do you.” What kind of statement does he think he’s making? Of course she says it a lot. She loves him, he doesn’t have to know that the love she feels isn’t entirely platonic. “It’s just nice to hear sometimes.”

The sink shuts off, and he stands over it for a second, his fingers gripping the edge of the counter as his shoulders become tense. Everything grows quiet, and she almost forgets to breathe as he angles his head toward her ever so slightly, then he swallows, the sound breaking the silence that has settled over the room as he watches her from the corner of his eye. “Do you ever mean it?” he asks quietly. “In a different way?”

 _Oh_. She should go, she really needs to go, because if she stays right now, she’s going to cross that line with him, but… he doesn’t sound like he hates the idea of what he’s suggesting. It sounds as if he doesn’t know how she feels, and he’s trying to figure it out. 

Maybe this is the moment she should stop hiding those feelings. Maybe this is the time to come forward and admit everything. 

“That I love you?”

“Yes.” He turns, slowly, his body almost completely still as he pivots on his feet. “Cause sometimes I catch myself looking at you with me, with Tai, and I can’t help thinking it feels right in more ways than just how close we are. I feel like I’ve completed some complex, five thousand-piece puzzle when you’re around. Especially lately. When we were at the picnic yesterday? I was so nervous when we got there, but then we started telling people, ‘oh, we’ve been married for years,’ and, ‘we’re deeply in love,’ and you kissed me I started to really see it.”

Her breath leaves her in a rush. “Oh my god…”

He puts his palms together as if he’s praying, then he holds his hands to his mouth, forefingers pressing into his lips. “I didn’t feel like I was acting yesterday. It felt real.”

This time, she’s the one who gulps as he makes his way back around that counter, his eyes never leaving hers as he tries to gauge her reaction, tries to see if he’s frightening her or if she’s excited and willing. “I felt it, too,” she finds herself saying, her hand reaching out for his as he sits down next to her, lacing their fingers together again. “I sometimes find myself wishing that you and Tai were mine. I never used to think much about having a family, but then you adopted him, and… you became my family. Both of you.”

“We’re your village.”

More soft giggles fall in the space between them, then he leans a little closer to her, and she finds herself pulled to him as if by a magnet. “You are my village. You always have been.” Then she sees his smile light up her world like the most brilliant and bright of all fireworks, and he’s kissing her again, his soft lips finding hers as her eyes drift shut, and she hums her joy against him. 

Her arms wrap around his neck, and it’s as if she too has put in the last piece of a five thousand-piece puzzle. It’s no different than when she kissed him yesterday, but it’s somehow _better._ He feels warm in her arms, and as he gets up from his chair and steps between her legs, she feels as if a fire is set in her very soul. 

Their bodies are pressed against each other now, and as he bends her head back, she can feel every part of him. Everything from the hard planes of his chest to the hardness between his legs pressing against the apex of her thighs is driving her wild, reminding her of those thoughts she’d had the day before about ripping his clothes off.

His tongue sweeps into her mouth, and she kind of wants to do that now--rip his clothes off. That part of her is the part that wraps her legs around his hips, which allows him to lift her up onto the countertop and hold her even closer. There aren’t even atoms between them anymore by the time she starts feeling her lungs burning, but it’s the greatest feeling she’s ever experienced, the most wonderful thing she’s ever felt in her life.

Stopping is the last thing she wants to do, but there’s another part of her, the rational part, the sane part, which knows that they need to slow down. She needs to breathe, and they need to talk about what they both want here. 

Though it nearly kills her to do so, Rey pulls away, her breathing coming much too quickly as she takes Ben’s cheeks in her palms, watching his eyes flutter open, his lower lip quivering with some unspoken emotion as he looks at her from beneath a thin curtain of raven hair. She fights back laughter as she brushes it away from his eyes, then she nods. “Hi.”

“Hey,” he whispers, a breathless sound of joy falling from his lungs. “I-I just--”

“I know.” A few more pants fill the air, then she manages to gather her wits, and her head stops spinning. “But, Ben?”

“Hmm?”

“What does this mean?”

“What do you mean?”

“You kissing me, your feelings, what does it all mean?” she asks, her hands falling to his chest. “I-I don’t want this to change--”

“It won’t. It just… it means that when you come over now, I can kiss you if I want to,” he says, his dimples prominent as he smiles brighter than ever before. “And I can take you on dates. I can love you in a different way than I ever have, I… _we_ can start going to picnics as an actual family rather than just a fake one.”

Her cheeks flush red, but it doesn’t seem to deter him. “That sounds nice.”

“I think it does, too.”

“But… we need to take our time, take things slow--”

“Not too slowly, I’m only going to have so many nights without Tai, and I fully plan to take advantage of every minute of this one.” 

She only has time to manage a brief giggle and nod her consent before he’s kissing her again, his lips moving in harmony with hers as he then lifts her from the counter, forcing her to hold on for dear life as she’s whirled away from the kitchen and the lingering smell of the food he’d cooked for them earlier and taken somewhere she can’t see. 

Neither of them is truly looking where they’re going, but somehow with the confidence in his steps, she suspects they’ll make it to their destination safely. All the while his fingers are making their way beneath the hem of her shirt, the tips of them skimming over the goosebumps on her back and the ridges of her spine. It’s oddly comforting, feeling him touch her this way, and soon those arms are tightening around her waist as he lays her down, and she feels her back touch what must be his mattress. 

Her eyes open as he starts crawling over her, and she crawls back until her head is resting on his pillow, her arm propping it up a little further as his hands reach for the hem of her shirt again. Lifting her back, she allows him to pull it off, the corners of her mouth twitching upward as she pulls him down to her again, hands searching hungrily beneath the hem of his own shirt as her legs wrap around his waist, her hips grinding gently against his as they both begin to slowly divest one another of their clothing. 

“Ben, are you sure about this?” she asks him, needing to hear him say it one last time before they go any further, needing to know that they won’t regret this later, that this isn’t just some brash and irrational decision. “This is what you want?”

There’s a brief moment of silence, then he finishes the removal of his shirt, both of them half-naked and vulnerable. “I want this.” He leans down, pressing a kiss to her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, and one more at the line of her jaw, his lips impossibly tender and soft at each place. “I want _you._ ”

Those words make her breathing stutter. “I-I want you, too. I’ve wanted you for a while now.”

“That and my rare night off from parenting are why I want this. We’ve both wanted it for a while, and… we can take our time. We don’t have to go any faster than this, do anything more than kiss, but--”

“Oh no, you’ve gotten my shirt off, you’ve taken me to your bed, you better do more than kiss me.”

A low chuckle leaves him at that, then he breathes deeply, his voice rumbling low in her soul as he kisses her again, holding her tight as he flips them around so that she is on top of him now, so that he can look up at her body as it shadows his, and she watches his eyes fill with awe. “Then who am I to refuse you?” he asks quietly, then she leans down and kisses him, putting them both out of their misery as they melt into each other again, descending into the sheets as the layers between them grow thinner and thinner by the minute, and they cross the final line between friends and lovers as one.


	6. Love

Mother  
  
Have you told her yet?  
  
Benjamin  
  
Benjamin it has been fifteen minutes.  
  
Ben? I hope it has all gone well. I know she loves you even if she says she doesn't.  
  
I'm here if you need to talk.  
  


Rose 🌹  
  
Hey? Hey Rey? do you think you could cover for me tomorrow? Daniel's coming down with something and Kay is sworn to some big project and I can't find anyone to watch him.  
  
Rey? Babe, it's getting kind of late.  
  
'm guessing you and the husband had a night, huh?  
  
UPDATE YOURE FREE I GOT POE TO COVER ME INSTEAD GET THAT 🍆  
  


It’s slow, the way he makes love to her. Not so much so that she isn’t thoroughly enjoying it, but he takes his time, his lips exploring every part of her body as his hands grip her hips like he’s afraid she’ll float away. It’s almost desperate, but it’s so, so sweet.

He starts at her chest, his lips taking one of her nipples into his mouth as her hands fist themselves in his hair. All the while his fingers are making their way up the inside of her thigh, pressing into her once they reach her apex as she whimpers his name.

“Just hold on,” he whispers, his breath cool against her wet skin. “I’ve got you.”

And so she does, she holds on, grasping at his shoulders as he begins pumping two fingers in and out of her, as he continues pressing gentle kisses to her skin. They fall between her breasts, down onto the muscles of her abdomen, and only continue further down.

Every single kiss sends a message to her very soul, as if she’s being lit on fire but her adrenaline is the thing that ignites as his lips make their way toward his fingers. Her breathing is growing increasingly unsteady, oxygen finding itself lucky to reach her brain, and she thinks that even though he hasn’t really, properly touched her yet, maybe this is heaven.

Or at the very least, it’s a close preview of it.

“Ben,” she pants, her voice growing higher in pitch, her head tilting back into his pillow as he closes his lips around the place where she needs him most, and sucks. It’s instantly the greatest thing she’s felt in a long time, as if she’s found something she hadn’t known she’d been searching for.

She’s been with people before, but something about doing this with him feels different. Maybe it’s the emotions. A lot of the sex she’s had has just been mindless hookups, but some of those have been spellbinding as well. Perhaps Ben Solo is simply good in bed, and maybe she’s also still going crazy from the fresh confessions they’d given one another in the kitchen.

Her eyes clench shut as he strokes her with his tongue, his hands firm on her thighs as she buries her fingers in his hair, stars filling her vision as he brings her closer and closer to the edge. It almost feels like floating--no, not floating, _flying_. She’s flying high above their heads in the clouds, and she doesn’t ever want to come down.

Of course, she has to come down eventually, but then Ben removes his fingers, his tongue taking their place, curling deep inside of her, and she all but howls his name as she falls apart, holding onto him so tightly, she almost fears she’s going to cause him harm. Somehow, he doesn’t complain through it all, and he just continues his ministrations like it’s nothing. It’s as if it’s the easiest thing in the world to him, to them both, and when her body slowly grows limp beneath him, she begins to laugh.

It’s breathless; she’s gasping for air in between each giggle, but soon he’s crawling over her, his massive palms leaving imprints in the mattress beside her and they are laughing together. His smile causes crinkles by his eyes, and even in the dim light, she can see them shining. There’s something in the way he looks at her that makes her heart flutter. He’s never looked at her this way before, not that she can remember. This feels as if he’s been holding it back, as if he’s been fighting back the urge to show her this for so long, and now that it’s free… it’s pure, unfiltered emotion at its finest.

This is what love looks like. It’s the way he’s looking at her now, the way she feels she’s been looking at him all along.

“What’s on your mind?” she asks him, her voice quiet and breathy, almost as if she has forgotten how to speak.

Ben’s lower lip quivers even as he rests his forehead against hers. Both of them are covered in a thin layer of sweat, and it should be kind of gross, but she doesn’t care. He’s here, she’s holding him, touching him, and her body is still limp, still so satisfied and blissed out from how hard she’d come under his tongue. “I-I just…” The words escape him, and instead of speaking, he just kisses her again, soft little hums escaping them both.

She can taste herself on his tongue, which is another thing she’d thought might be kind of gross, but it only spurs her on further. Arousal begins welling within her once more, her mind spinning as his lips brush slowly, lazily against hers, as they seal themselves together in every way but one.

In his kiss, she can feel everything he’s saying. His palm comes up to caress her cheek, and she knows it’s an, _I love you_. His tongue sweeps along her lip and she feels the _I’m not going anywhere_ in her bones. Every single touch means something, but when their lips close around each other, when they find their rhythm, she feels the, _welcome home_ most strongly of all the messages he sends.

Home. This man is her home. She knows, and always has known from very early on in life that home is much more than just a place. Sometimes it is a person, and he is _her_ person.

Calm washes over her as their kisses slow to a halt, and for a few seconds, they simply remain like that, their lips locked, their bodies entwined, the world around them forgotten. It’s a nice little eternity, a wonderful quiet she could get lost in forever.

Then she feels Ben’s erection prodding gently between her thighs, and she breaks the kiss again to laugh at him as they pull apart. “Are you all right?”

“I think we could be a little closer right now is all.”

“Our bodies are physically touching literally everywhere, Ben Solo, I’m going to need you to use your words.”

A soft hum leaves him. “Rey, I want to--”

She kisses him again, deciding that, actually, she doesn’t want to hear him use his words. All she wants is for him to be inside of her already, to finally finish stripping him of his clothes as he gasps against her. Smiles are still bright on both of their faces, but it doesn’t stop them as Rey begins slipping her fingers beneath the waistband of his boxers.

The man on top of her gives a tiny giggle once she manages to pull them off of him, then just when he’s settling over her again, she twists her hips, and presses him into the mattress. He grunts as he lands, but his fingers are quick to bury themselves in her hair, pulling her back to him in another kiss. It’s another instant headrush, one that makes her feel dizzy, but she’s not here just to kiss him.

This is it, the first time they ever do this together, and she could just spend all the time in the world kissing him, but as he’s been saying all along, they won’t have that many nights without Tai--nights where they won’t have to worry about being interrupted by crying or some other need of his. She’ll be more than happy to help Ben with all of it, but she does want this, just this one night out of the many she thinks they’ll be having together, and then they can start the rest.

“Wait,” he whispers, pulling away from the kiss before she can. “Condoms?”

 _Ah,_. Right, they hadn’t really talked about protection yet, had they? They’d just jumped in. Not that she regrets jumping in, she’s quite happy with that, but they do need to make sure nothing happens here tonight that they don’t want to happen. “I’m on the pill. Have been for years. I’m good with that if you are.”

Ben manages a small laugh. “I’m good with it.” He kisses her again, moaning softly as she takes him in her hand, and begins to stroke him gently, both of them panting against one another as he rests his forehead against hers. “ _Fuck._ ”

Neither of them is capable of saying much beyond that single word as she begins to lower herself onto him. They are both a mess of gasps and broken whispers, soft little moans and hands that touch each other everywhere. His hands are on her hips, her chest, her back, and as she finally seats herself on him fully, they’re in her hair again and he’s kissing her like this is their last night on earth.

It’s precisely how she wants to be kissed, she thinks as she begins to move on top of him. Her hands grip his shoulders like they’re her lifeline, her nails digging into his skin as she whimpers from the feeling of being filled.

The way they move together is magnetic. He meets her beat for beat, as if they are sharing the same thoughts, the same mind. Almost as if this entire thing, their entire relationship from the minute they met, was always going to lead them right here.

Eventually, they break this next kiss, both of them too short of breath to possibly continue, and she finds herself looking into his eyes. The darkness in the room makes it somewhat difficult to see, but nothing can quite hide the whiskey color of his eyes, the gold that shines in them in whatever light they catch. _God,_ he’s beautiful like this; a sheen of sweat coating his skin, his hair in disarray, his lips kiss swollen, and his eyes…

They are the sun in the middle of the night.

“ _Fuck, Rey,_ ” he breathes, causing her to giggle as she rides him a little faster. She knows he knows what she’s doing, that she’s trying her best to make him come first, and she can see it in his eyes that he won’t let her.

Ever the considerate partner, he’s going to try to make _her_ come first, even though she’s come already. A part of her considers loathing him for it, but as his thumb begins to rub circles where his tongue had been moments earlier, she knows she can’t. The feeling it brings her is too damn good.

“Ben,” she whispers, and it becomes all she’s capable of saying as this man; her best friend, her lover, makes her fall closer and closer to the edge, and then she’s tumbling over it, fluttering around him as she buries her face in his neck. “Ben, Ben, Ben…”

She continues quietly muttering his name as she comes down, but he shouts hers when he finally reaches his peak. He follows after her almost immediately, his hands gripping her tightly but not so much so that she can’t breathe as he comes.

They’re both a mess by the time it’s over, both of them are panting messes. Their faces are buried in each other’s hair, their bodies are slicked with sweat, and their skin stings with the marks of their fingernails, but it’s worth it--it’s _completely_ worth it. She smiles as the last of it fades, and they’re just sitting there in each other’s arms, basking in the afterglow.

One of his hands begins stroking her back, fingers tracing the ridges of her spine as he rocks them gently in the bed. Her head rests on his shoulder then, her lips pressing into his neck while he kisses the tangled mess that is her hair. “I love you,” she says, and it could be too soon, but they’ve been friends for years, they know what they are to each other.

It’s not like she asked him to marry her. That would probably be too far right now--or would it, given that they just spent a day together pretending to be married--but it’s not a bad thought.

Luckily, her gamble pays off. “I love you, too,” he replies, his voice more quiet and soft than she’s ever heard it. In fact, it’s so faint, she almost doesn’t hear it, but she’s grateful that she does, that she catches the little hints of vulnerability and emotion to it. There’s a little tremor on his last word, one that leaves her breath shaking to hear it, and she thinks for half a second that he might be crying, at least a little bit, but then he pulls away.

There is a shine to his eyes, but they’re only misty. He isn’t a complete emotional wreck, but he’s close to it. She offers him a smile as she brushes his hair out of them, causing the corners of his mouth to twitch up as he shifts them again, slipping out of her as they lay beside one another in the bed.

He scoops her into his arms, her head resting on his chest and his fingers stroking her hair as he holds her close. “Did you mean it? What you just said?”

Turning to kiss the hard plane of one of his pectoral muscles, Rey nods. “Of course I did. I do.”

“I was worried about telling you how I felt for a while. I thought for some reason that with the baby and everything--”

“That I wouldn’t want you?”

“Yeah.”

“Ben, you know how much I love Tai. You--you’re both my entire world some days.” She rests a hand on his chest, feeling his heart racing beneath her palm. “I promise you, he never has been something that detracted from how much I want you. When I say I want you I mean all of it, every piece of you and all you come with. Tai is your son, he’s not yours by blood, no, but he’s an extension of you nonetheless. He’s yours. I love both of you.”

He swallows, his chest shaking with his next breath as he nods, seeming to understand what she’s saying even if it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. “You’re right, I should’ve known better, but… I just couldn’t fight the fear of losing you.”

“Well, get rid of it, because you’re not. You’ll find it rather difficult,” she says, yawning as she speaks. “I won’t go anywhere.”

Ben just laughs, then he kisses the crown of her head. “You sound tired.”

Another yawn. “I am,” she admits, closing her eyes as she nuzzles into his chest. “You wore me out.”

“Get some sleep, Rey.”

“No, I gotta pee first, I don’t want a UTI,” she murmurs, causing him to fucking chortle as she gets up from the bed, tossing a pillow at him as she goes, but even though he’s teasing her, she can’t help smiling as she disappears into his bathroom, freeing herself from any future worries before she returns to the bed and his arms, and they disappear into the quiet of sleep together.

*

When she wakes, he isn’t in the bed with her. In fact, she knows this before she even opens her eyes because she can hear voices filtering in from outside his bedroom door. The first voice is Ben’s, then she can hear his mother’s, and the last thing she can hear is Tai’s happy little cries as his father teases him in greeting.

 _Leia returned him early,_ she realizes as she opens her eyes. It can’t be later than seven-thirty going by how bright the sun is outside, but still, hearing that little noise from the baby and her boyfriend’s voice--is that what he is to her now? They haven’t really put a label on it--makes her want to get up and run to them immediately.

She sits up, and realizes why she can’t do that as the blanket covering her body falls from her chest, exposing her breasts to the cool air of Ben’s apartment. _Shit,_ where the hell are her clothes? She can’t remember when or where she lost her shirt, if she took it off before they got into the bedroom or after, but she knows Ben keeps a few shirts in one of his nightstands. It might just be the one closest to her.

One of his t-shirts will swallow her whole, but she loves the idea of wearing his clothes, and as she begins to rifle through the drawer next to her, she’s rewarded immediately with the sight of an old, black sweater. It has a hole in it in the middle, likely from him forcing it over his head too quickly, but it’ll do. She throws that sweater on, trying not to think about how much it smells like him, and makes her way from the bedroom, passing over piles of their clothes on her way out.

Her timing, as it turns out, is impeccable. She can hear Leia saying her goodbyes to her son, the front door to the apartment closing, just as she opens the bedroom door, and she’s greeted with the sight of a sleepy, beheaded Ben holding his son close to his chest, the baby babbling mindlessly as he grasps at his shirt.

It’s frighteningly, beautifully domestic. He holds the baby without a trace of anxiety, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to him, and she almost wants to just stand there in the doorway watching them for a while. Something about the simple sight of them together brings a rush of joy through her mind, but then he looks up, spotting her, and he smiles, those dimples making themselves known on his cheeks. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she replies, walking forward until she reaches them, then she leans up to press a brief kiss to his lips. Ben, of course, has other ideas, and the second she starts pulling away from this first kiss, he’s chasing her for another, smiling against her lips as he wraps his free arm around her waist, pulling her close so that he’s holding his entire family in his arms.

Is it weird for her to already consider them her family? No, she doesn’t think so. She’s thought of them as her family since long before they ever kissed, even if those first few kisses were just part of an act. That’s a normal thought, it’s just part of how she already thinks. It just means more now that they do kiss and consider themselves lovers.

Slowly, he pulls away, his eyes drawn to Tai as the baby squeals for attention in his grasp. “Good morning to you, too,” she tells him, leaning down to kiss his little head. Another happy squeal fills her ears, then she turns back to Ben. “I was almost worried when you weren’t in bed with me when I woke up.”

“Sorry about that, my mother wanted to drop him off early. She had work.”

“Mmm, she always does.” She kisses his cheek. “I have work later, too, but we should have the next few hours to ourselves.”

A low groan escapes him. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’ll come back when it’s over,” she promises him, then she pauses. “But maybe after making a stop by a Babies R’ Us or something. I want Tai to have a crib at my place in case we end up spending the night there. I’m going to want to sleep in my own bed at some point.”

Ben just nods as they both look down again at Tai’s smiling face. “I like that plan. It’s good. Makes this feel a bit more real and not like it’s just some really good dream.”

“If this is a dream, I promise you, I have no intention of ever waking up.” Then she kisses him again, long and slow, only breaking away when the infant between them once again cries for attention, and they both beam down at him.

“I think I’ll make some breakfast, he’s probably hungry. I know I am.”

“You need help?”

He pauses, then he looks down at her arms, neither of them having to speak a word before she takes the infant from him, rocking Tai gently as he coos his approval. “Just hold him for me. I think I’d like to just look at the two of you together while I do this.”

Rey snorts as they walk into the kitchen. “You cheesy fucker.”

All he does in response is laugh. “Watch your language, Rey.” He points to Tai as he reaches for the pan cabinet with his other hand. “There’s a baby present.”

“He’s too young to understand,” she counters, remembering the conversation they’d had at the picnic with fondness.

Ben just winks at her as he retrieves a pan, moving on toward his pantry for pancake mix as she watches the gears turn in his brain for some kind of retort. In the end, he sets the mix down on the counter, faces her, and just sighs. “I love you.”

Yeah, that’s better than any comeback he could’ve given her, she thinks, then she glances down at the baby in her arms, then back at him. “I love you, too,” she says, then he turns around, sets to work on making their breakfast, and their first morning as a real family begins.


	7. Yes

Rose 🌹   
  
It's not too much, is it?   
  
Rey, what are you talking about? It's a simple gold band. It's not too much.   
  
He's going to love it, babe. I promise. He loves you.   
  
But what if he says no?   
  
We haven't really talked about getting married.   
  
Babe, when I first MET him you were pretending to be married. You’ve been married from day one you’re just trying to make it official.   
  
And get some tax benefits.   
  
Also I STILL CANT BELIEVE YOU MADE IT UP HOLY SHIT.   
  
You know by now that you can tell us what’s going on with you, right?   
  
Yeah, yeah, I do, but I’m glad I did it, though. It made Ben and I stop acting so stupid and, well, tell each other how we felt.   
  
And now you're literally cuter than a box of puppies.   
  
Okay, I wouldn't go THAT far.   
  
Babe, you guys just OOZE love. It's adorable.   
  
Also, you and Tai are just??? I would never have guessed that you weren’t a part of adopting him you seem so effortless together.   
  
Your WHOLE FAMILY. It's perfect.   
  
Thanks, Rose 😭   
  
Of fucking course, babe. So can you please stop worrying? It’s going to be a perfect proposal.   
  
A picnic isn’t too cheesy, right? I just don’t want him to ever regret any minute of this, or me. If this doesn’t go perfectly I will regret it forever.   
  
On the contrary, I think that it not going perfectly might be just the way to make a great memory.   
  
You know Kaydel dropped the ring when she proposed to me, right? It nearly went into one of those street sewers with grating?   
  
She turned white as a sheet and I thought she was going to FAINT.   
  
But it made our engagement so MEMORABLE.   
  
That’s a fair point, but I don’t want to almost lose or ACTUALLY lose Ben’s engagement ring!   
  
You won’t! Look, you’ll be okay. Just woman up and ask him to marry you.   
  
Think of the sex you’ll have tonight, Rey. It’ll get you through it.   
  
ROSE   
  
Did I fucking stutter?   
  
I love you, asshole.   
  
I love you, too. Good luck! Text me when you're a newly engaged woman!   
  


Rey still feels like she’s going to faint when she stops texting Rose. Everything is spinning, almost as if she has horrible vertigo, but then she looks down at the ring box in her hand, and she centers herself.

This is _Ben_ she’s proposing to. Ben, who had invited her into his family without question, who had allowed her to help raise his son as if he were her own, who had moved into her apartment because he loved her so much and he wanted to be closer to her, and her apartment had more space.

Ben, who had told her he loved her the first time they made love, and hasn’t stopped telling her every day since.

Rose is right, he’s going to say yes. In fact, he probably would’ve said yes even if she’d asked him on the very first date they went on, the very first time he told her she was part of his village. She’s just nervous because who isn’t nervous right before they propose to someone? It’s a big step, and even though they are married in every way except the physical, she knows how much this will mean to him.

Especially because she’s proposing on their anniversary.

Three hundred and sixty-five days have flown by so fast, each and every one of them a gift. They’ve had hardships, sure, but that’s part of life. She still wakes up every morning with the hope that each day will be better than the last, that she won’t have to worry about losing what she has or wake up and realize that this has all been some kind of beautiful dream.

 _If this is a dream, I swear I’ll never wake up,_ she remembers telling him, and she’d meant it then and she means it now.

Fortunately, it isn’t a dream, and right now, she’s making her way through downtown to where they’ve agreed to meet in their local park. It’s a nice spot overlooking a mountain, with green grass and these pretty yellow flowers, and blue butterflies that flutter about everywhere. One time when they’d picnicked there, a butterfly had landed on Tai’s nose, and she’d been lucky enough to snap a picture of it. That picture is now hanging proudly on their refrigerator, a lovely reminder of their baby’s shocked little face when it had happened.

Ben once had one land in his hair, becoming temporarily trapped in it before Rey untangled the poor creature, and set it free, the two of them watching as it flew away toward the next picnic blanket.

Now she’s at that same park, the butterflies already flying around her head as if in some sort of greeting, but she forces herself to pay them no mind as she and the ring box in her hand make their way through the park toward him. She spots him after just thirty seconds of searching, his dark hair shining in the sunlight as he holds Tai above him. He’s lying on his back, giggling up at the toddler as he tickles his sides, and he giggles helplessly as he’s moved about in the air like he’s flying.

For a moment, she just stands there, watching them, loving the sight of her boyfriend and their son--she thinks she can call him their son now--playing happily in the sunlight. Then she moves, shoving the ring box into the pocket of her skirt as she approaches, kneeling low to the ground as she shoves her face in front of Ben’s, and he lights up upon seeing her.

“Hey,” he breathes, setting the toddler down as she sits down beside him. Before he can say anything else, she wraps her arms around his shoulders, pulling him in close for a brief, but passionate kiss. He’s still smiling as he kisses her, one of his arms wrapping around her waist as she starts to pull away, and she makes a high pitched noise as she returns it.

Of course, their kisses never last too long these days. Within seconds, there’s a happy squeal coming from Tai, and she pulls away to find their child staring at them, clapping his little hands together as he reaches out for her.

Warmth floods her body, and she feels her heart grow three sizes as she picks him up, and kisses his little forehead. “Hi, baby.” Ben laughs as she nuzzles her nose against his, then she holds him close, the two-year-old resting his head on her shoulder while his ever explorative fingers toy with the ruffles on her shirt. “How’s he been today?”

“Chatty. He insulted the checkout-girl at the grocery store today.”

“Oh no, what’d he do?” Rey looks at the toddler in her arms, at his innocent face, and wonders just what the hell could’ve happened.

Ben just snorts. “He told her to ‘fuck off’ when I told her she accidentally rang up the bananas twice.”

Biting her lip, she makes the most inconspicuous face she can think of. “I have no idea where he might’ve gotten that.”

He quirks an eyebrow. They both know _precisely_ where Tai picked up his potty mouth. “We’re going to have to make a swear jar because of you.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Tai giggles as he shakes the ruffle he has a grip on. “Fah off!” he cries enthusiastically, causing his mother to slam her palm into her forehead while her boyfriend chortles, helpless to stop himself.

 _Oh, this is bad._ “Okay, I’ll cut back.”

“He’s going to tell my mother to fuck off at Thanksgiving, I can already tell.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No, my dad will get a kick out of it. He’s the one who taught _me_ fuck off back in the day.” Ben reaches up and pinches his son’s cheek. “Like grandfather, like grandson, I guess.”

Rey hums as she leans her head against his shoulder, setting Tai down in the space between them before the toddler begins to reach for one of his _Buzz Lightyear_ figurines that Ben has laid out on the blanket for him. For a moment, they just take it all in, both watching the breeze drift through the trees, the leaves rustling with every blow, and she takes stock of how lucky she is.

She also remembers the ring box burning a hole in her pocket, and swallows nervously at the thought of it. All that matters now is finding the right moment, making it epic and memorable. A part of her just wants to blurt out “will you marry me?” but she doesn’t think that’s how she wants to do it. She wants it to be done _right_.

This is how they begin their engagement, how they begin to formally tie themselves together. The moment has to be perfect. It has to.

“You want to break into the food?” he asks after a while, one of his hands coming up to caress the base of her skull while his fingers stroke her hair. “It’s not much, just little sandwiches and bananas, but… I figure we’ll both enjoy it.”

The corners of her mouth tilt up as she leans in, and presses a brief kiss to his lips. “I’d love to,” she tells him, then she watches as he leans forward, and begins opening the picnic basket.

 _This is it,_ a tiny voice whispers in her head. _This is your moment. He’s distracted. Pull out the ring and ask him._

It’s true. This is an opportune moment, and maybe it’s what she needs to finally start reaching into her pocket and wrap her fingers around the ring, pulling it slowly from the fabric while he pulls out the sandwiches he made.

Taking in one last, deep breath, Rey points out into the distance, needing to be sure he doesn’t see her open the box. It’s cheesy, she knows it is, but she shouts, “Hey, what’s that?” and as her partner looks away, distracted, she opens the box, and shifts up onto one knee.

“Where?” he asks, but she barely hears it as she holds out the box and taps on his shoulder with her left hand.

It’s as if the next several seconds happen in slow motion.

First, Ben turns his head, but he does so rather quickly, so a few of his raven waves fall into his eyes, preventing him from spotting the ring in her hand for a half-second longer. Her heart starts racing, her pulse likely visible beneath her skin--she’s becoming a nervous wreck the longer he doesn’t notice, the more time that goes by without him giving her the yes she desires.

Then he brushes his hair out of his eyes, and they land on the ring box. She’s never seen them go so wide, and they are soon joined by his jaw falling slack, his lips parting gently with a small laugh of disbelief. His breathing becomes a little staggered, and he starts stuttering over what he’s trying to say, but then she holds up a finger to his lips.

“Ben, shut up for a minute and let me get the words out,” she says, then she releases her finger from his lips, and rests her hand on his cheek instead. “Okay?”

“O-Okay.”

Taking another deep breath, she straightens her back in an attempt to look more confident than she is. Whether or not it works, she doesn’t know, but she won’t allow herself to think about that. “Ben Solo, I have loved you in some capacity from the minute we met. You made me laugh within seconds of the first time I saw you, and when I learned your name, some part of me knew that I was going to have you in my life for a very long time, and you were going to be _very_ difficult to get rid of.

“Falling in love with you wasn’t something I saw coming, but it was just so fucking-- _freaking_ , sorry--that I didn’t even think twice about it. Not when you adopted your son, not when you poured all of your time into raising him, and when you needed my help I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than right there next to you.

“And so we’ve been together for a year now. Honestly, giving you this ring feels kind of stupid, I feel as if we’ve done this before, as if we’re already married. My soul, no matter what I do at this point, is bound to yours, so this is honestly just arbitrary, but…” She pauses, biting her lip as she knows she’s reached the end of her speech, the last of the things she needs to say before she does this, and she takes one last moment to take it all in before she nods. “I want to do it anyway, so without any further preamble, w--”

There isn’t a chance for her to stop him or even try to get another word out. Instead, he just kisses her, both of them smiling into it as they hear another little squeal from Tai, and she knows he’s saying yes, but she still needs to hear him say it.

They keep kissing for another couple of seconds anyway, Ben’s lips hurriedly pressing against hers in strokes that are very enthusiastic but not terribly graceful as he lets her know just how much he wants this, too. “Ben,” she whispers, pulling back slightly, but then he’s back again, his palms cupping her cheeks as he seems to find himself with a lack of words.

“Ben.” _Kiss_. “Tai.” _Kiss_. “Is.” _Kiss_. “Right there.” _Kiss_.

That seems to get him back to reality. He pulls away from her, his eyes shining as he then rests his forehead against hers. “Yes,” he breathes. “I… I would love to marry you. I was actually thinking of asking, but I just--you beat me to it.”

“Oops,” she says, then she takes one of his hands from her face, and pulls the ring from its box, spreading out his fingers so that she can place it on his forefinger. His dimples make themselves known as she slides it on, and once it’s resting comfortably past his second knuckle, his fingers wrap themselves around hers.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she replies, then she looks down at the ring on his finger--her _fiance's_ finger. “Yeah, that feels good.”

He grins a little wider. “Now I just need to get you one to match.”

“Mmm, should we go to the courthouse later?”

“If we do a courthouse wedding, my mother will widow you.” He shakes his head, then he gives her a somewhat apprehensive look. “Although, we could always do it in secret and _then_ plan a big ceremony.”

Rey looks down at the toddler between them, watching Tai as he watches one of the blue butterflies that’s fluttering about in the park, and she nods her agreement. “Yeah, we could, but you’re getting me a ring first, mister.”

“Fair enough,” he says, then the butterfly their son is watching lands on his little finger, the toddler laughing delightedly as he brings it closer to his face to inspect it. “I just hope they let us bring him into the courthouse.”

“They will. We need witnesses.”

“Don’t our witnesses have to be adults?”

“I’ll text Rose and Kay, it’ll be fine,” she says, then she kisses his cheek. “Don’t worry about it.”

Those dimples grow again on his cheeks. “So we’re doing it? We’re getting married?”

“We’re eating our little sandwiches first.” She looks down at Tai, who is now watching his butterfly fly away with a mystified look in his eyes. “Then we can get married.”

“I like that plan,” he says, then he kisses his fiance again one last time, long and slow, a promise of more to come later, and when he pulls away, she feels her heartrate finally starting to calm down, her body feeling warm and relaxed as she leans into him, and he kisses her temple. “Let’s eat.”

And so they eat, the rest of the afternoon flying by in a beautiful blur of laughter, butterflies, the occasional piece of chicken salad sandwich flying into someone’s face, and pure joy as she and Ben plan their upcoming wedding. All of her nerves finally vanish as the reality of it sets in. They’re going to get married, she’s going to formally be a part of his and Tai’s lives, and after years of searching, she will finally, officially, have a family.


End file.
